Russia is trying to weaken Europe by spreading disinformation, i.e. false and misleading information to citizens. The goal is to sow internal mistrust and block Western support for Ukraine.
In this story, we tell you what new ways Russia is trying to spread its disinformation, and how you can prepare for it.
1. The target is now also small countries
Latvia’s social media was suddenly filled with strange messages aggressively defending the participation of the country’s hockey players in the tournament in Russia, despite Putin’s brutal war of aggression.
In February, something happened in Latvian social media.
It all started when a group of Latvian hockey players attended the president Vladimir Putin to host the tournament in Kazan, Russia. The players’ participation in the games was widely condemned at home and by the Latvian Ice Hockey Federation suspended the players.
Messaging service X was suddenly filled with thousands of bots that had another voice on the clock.
The bots, i.e. automated accounts, defended the hockey players and demanded that sports must be kept separate from politics. What the bots had in common was that they used a weak Latvian language in their posts.
– It was the largest single Latvian-language bot attack that has ever been detected, says the head of the department Max Arhippainen From NATO’s Strategic Communication Competence Center in Riga.
It was a clear disinformation campaign by the Kremlin, with which Russia sought to incite internal discord and mistrust in its small neighboring country. This was the conclusion of both the NATO center and the investigative news website that published the matter Re:Baltica.
– What was new here was the massive movement in the Latvian language. The educated speculation is that this was a show of force and a general exercise before the European elections, says Arhippainen in an interview with .
In the past, Russia has spread disinformation mainly in the major European languages.
According to Arhippainen, the case of Latvia probably shows that Russia is trying to influence more and more even in small European language areas.
Creating content with artificial intelligence language models is now cheap and easy. In the video, Arhippainen explains how NATO Stratcom tested the issue with a single experiment.
In Finland, too, we have already seen bad influence attempts in Finnish, where pro-Russian troll accounts tried, among other things, to turn public opinion against NATO.
Companies have been transparent, but artificial intelligence is developing quickly.
According to Arhippainen, the danger is that in a couple of years Russia would be able to carry out credible influence campaigns in small languages.
By bullying, Russia aims for a potentially bigger influence.
For example, in the European Council, even a small country can block joint decision-making.
Hungary and Slovakia in particular have recently questioned the EU’s support for Ukraine. In Slovakia’s elections last fall, an attempt was made to mislead voters with fake videos in Slovak, produced by artificial intelligence.
– If a pro-Russian leadership came to Slovakia, it would be able to influence the decision-making of the EU. That’s why I think that the coordinated campaigns for small countries will continue, says Arhippainen.
2. Block e-mails from fact-checkers
Russia is trying to employ journalists and researchers who specialize in exposing fake news with fake verification requests. Strange social media senders asked journalists to investigate, among other things, a graffiti picture of the president of Ukraine and the head lice problem in Paris. Both claims are products of the Russian propaganda machine.
The photo above shows graffiti depicting the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky begging for alms with empty hands.
The photo was published by the name brand “Käthe” in X at the end of December. “Käthe” claimed that the picture is from Los Angeles.
On the same day many fact checkers in different countries got the message with the accompanying words “Please check this news”.
According to the researchers, the case is an example of Russia’s latest way of organizing disinformation campaigns: blocking fact-checkers’ emails and social media channels with fake photos and videos similar to Zelenskyi’s photo.
What they have in common is that proving them wrong is laborious.
Among others, the Antibot4Navalny collective has investigated strange review requests.
According to its representative, Russia’s goal is to increase the workload of Western fact-checkers, for example during various elections. At the same time, the aim is to get ordinary internet users to spread Russian propaganda.
– The campaign tries to focus the work of fact-checkers on pointless issues. On the other hand, an image is created for the general public that the fact checkers are not reliable, because they do not accept all requests, a representative of the collective tells in the instant message service.
An anonymous collective of volunteers aims to trace Russian disinformation operations. It has cooperated with numerous large international news media.
Similar requests have been received by at least hundreds of fact-checking organizations around the world. The phenomenon is also familiar to the Finnish Faktabari.
– We receive dozens of fake fact-checking requests by e-mail every day, says Faktabari’s responsible editor Pipsa Havula.
The messages ask to check pro-Russian claims and fake pictures of, for example, the Paris Olympics and Ukrainian refugees.
Russia has also raised concerns about the bedbug problem in Paris.
3. Russia is sowing discord over Ukraine
Russia is trying to build a new dividing line between European countries from the war in Ukraine. In the past, Russia has tried to intensify the confrontation related to, for example, rainbow minorities, immigration and climate change.
Clown. Coward. Junkie. Among other things, this is how Russia tries to describe Ukrainian President Zelensky.
Russia’s lies about the war in Ukraine have been part of the Kremlin’s strategy for a long time.
Especially in those countries where there is significant political opposition to supporting Ukraine, Russia spreads lies to deepen the dividing lines.
For example, during the autumn presidential elections, a huge amount of content smearing Zelensky spread on social media in Slovakia, according to a report by the research organization Reset Tech.
– The entire Union’s support for Ukraine can be weakened just by getting a couple of EU countries to take a critical view of Ukraine. In the European elections, Russia will encourage parties that are critical of the unity of the EU, says Max Arhippainen of the NATO Center.
It doesn’t matter to Russia where the sowers of strife are found on the political field. There are critics of supporting the EU and Ukraine at both extremes, says a researcher from the European Expertise Center for Combating Hybrid Threats.
– The Russians do not practice discrimination here, but work with the far right and the far left. Now the far right is highlighted because it currently has more influence and support in Europe, senior researcher Jakub Kalensky says.
In the video, Kalenský explains what means Russia is using to weaken Europe.
Russia’s goal is not necessarily only to influence EU decisions, but also to paralyze decision-making. Arhippainen brings up, for example, Germany, whose leadership has condemned Russia’s attack since the beginning of the war, but at the same time hesitated to give aid to Ukraine at every turn.
– If disinformation makes the decision-makers and the people so confused that they are unable to decide anything, it can be the same thing in terms of the final result.
Finland is not protected either
Although disinformation is constant, the month before the European elections is a particularly sensitive time.
Russia will probably try to use the big events in May, the Eurovision Song Contest and the Ice Hockey World Cup, as platforms for their propaganda campaigns.
According to experts, Finland’s resistance to Russian propaganda is relatively strong, but one should not be lulled into a false sense of security.
Arhippainen of the NATO center says that Finland has a strong consensus on foreign and security policy. However, there are other exploitable distribution lines in Finland.
– If you look at the labor market, I would argue that Finland is internally more fragmented and divided than it has been in decades. Although so far Finnish politicians have almost without exception behaved responsibly in security policy, some of them may be tempted to use security issues as a bludgeoning weapon in domestic politics.
– It could be very fatal.